Regional embodied carbon emissions and their transfer characteristics in China

Dequn Zhou, Xiaoyong Zhou, Qing Xu, Fei Wu, Qunwei Wang () and Donglan Zha

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2018, vol. 46, issue C, 180-193

Abstract: Estimating embodied carbon emissions (ECEs) in inter-regional trade and uncovering their transfer characteristics are of great significance to the efficient allocation of regional carbon responsibilities. With a multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model, this study first estimated the China’s regional ECEs during 2002–2012, and then investigated how they transferred through major regions and key industries. Finally, a structural decomposition analysis (SDA) was used to analyze the driving factors of changes in China’s regional ECEs. The results indicate that: (1) China’s regional ECEs have increased by 197%, from 518 Mt in 2002 to 1537 Mt in 2012; (2) ECEs have mainly transferred from less developed regions like northwest to developed regions like east coast through carbon-intensive manufacturing industries, testifying that “pollution heaven” hypothesis did work in China to some extent; (3) inter-regional trade scale growth was the dominant factor in increasing regional ECEs, while technological progress in exporting regions played a key restraining role. Based on the results, we provide some relevant suggestions for China’s regional carbon reduction policies.

Keywords: Embodied carbon emissions; Regional carbon transfer; Multi-regional input-output model; Structural decomposition analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X18300389
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:streco:v:46:y:2018:i:c:p:180-193

DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2018.05.008

Access Statistics for this article

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics is currently edited by F. Duchin, H. Hagemann, M. Landesmann, R. Scazzieri, A. Steenge and B. Verspagen

More articles in Structural Change and Economic Dynamics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().